


Sinnerman (Oughta Be Prayin')

by willowbilly



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blackmail, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Identity Reveal, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowbilly/pseuds/willowbilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt’s breath catches as the last grim hope he’s been nurturing is stifled. He barely listens as Fisk thanks Wesley and walks forward, as Fisk says, “Well, Mr. Murdock? Will you see reason?” </p><p><em>I can't see anything</em> flashes hysterically through Matt’s mind, and he chokes on what might be laughter, bites down hard into the padding of his glove, tastes oily smoke and dirt, synthetics and blood and bile. He realizes that there are tears soaking into his now-pointless mask, patches of hot, prickling dampness which cling irritatingly to his skin, and he rips it off his head, casts it away. Cool, musty air hits the wretched bareness of his exposed upper face, and he doubles over, sinking to the floor. Wild, keening sobs rattle in his chest, scrape their way up his throat, and flood from his mouth, raw, and anguished, and intensely, helplessly furious. </p><p>There is only one choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [he was waiting (ran to the devil)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851323) by [endquestionmark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark). 



> Title is likewise from Nina Simone's "Sinnerman": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH3Fx41Jpl4

Elena Cardenas is dead. She is lying on a cold steel table, the stiff sheet draped over her body ineffectually muffling how seemingly resounding the early tissue decomposition is within the unnaturally still, clay-like shell of her corpse, cells breaking down, bursting, gases building up, foul and burbling, tepid blood trickling sluggishly downwards through the slackened channels of lifeless veins to collect into livid pools, coagulating at the lowest points, dregs flowing to the bottom of a bag of skin. Rigor mortis is beginning to set in, making the muscles tighten creakily around brittle osteoporosis-riddled bones fragile as a bird's, rendering clammy flesh rigid. Her floral perfume is already fading away. There is no breath. There is no heartbeat.

There is only Matt’s rage. Only the Devil’s vengeance.

He lets it drive him out under the deepening cover of nightfall, concrete cooling, streetlights and neon signs buzzing as they flicker on. The impacts of his boots hitting the rooftops shiver through his legs with an intensity that makes him feel cumbersome and feverish even as his every step, every leap, lands with swift and unerring accuracy, bearing him onwards along a path choked by brambles. His fists serve as a fine machete, hacking through the thickets of deceit and misdirection, drawing out the leads he needs to find the piece of filth who stabbed a lone, sweet, elderly woman to death in selfish pursuit of the hollow escape afforded by drugs to take himself out of his own feeble mind and away from the stench of his rotting teeth. A promise given to the junkie by the man who would pause before the cameras to give an oh-so-inspiring, affectedly impromptu speech wherein he has the gall to claim, with that initially fumbling, ultimately grave, always heartfelt earnestness which impels people to believe him, to look _up_ to him, he with his self-deluded honesty claims _I mourn this woman’s death_. Matt draws out the leads he needs to take him to the warehouse on the water. And into Nobu’s ambush.

 

~~~

 

He hadn’t thought. He’d been reckless. He’d been reactional. And now he’s been beaten to hell and back and his opponent has fallen forever, the pungent gasoline soaking the loose, heavy layers of clothing having been set alight by the sparks sprayed down from the lamp bulb shattered by Matt’s billy club, the scorching maelstrom of flame subsiding as Nobu collapses under a loose final exchange of desperate blows and succumbs to the burns eating ravenously into him. He is his own funeral pyre, the smell of charred cloth giving way to roasting meat and the sheer heat and whooshing roar of the fire temporarily entrancing Matt’s senses so that he doesn’t register the arrival of others until Wilson Fisk speaks from behind him to utter a dry urbanity. “Thank you.”

Fisk continues in his deliberate, measured, almost halting way as Matt twists unsteadily around in his partial crouch to face him, the natural tone of his voice strained into gutturalness by how deeply from his throat he talks, grating along Matt’s frayed nerves. “Nobu… was becoming an issue. I appreciate you… _removing_ him from… concern.”

Fisk stands flanked by two men, the left of whom wears a familiar watch, distinguishing himself as the man who’d come to Matt and Foggy’s office, ostensibly representing Union Allied while deftly withholding his name. Fisk’s literal right hand man. The watch’s steady ticking mocks the rushing surge of Matt’s agitated pulse. They all stand between him and the only door.

Matt doesn’t have the breath or the composure to muster Daredevil’s intimidating growl. His incredulous question comes out in broken, tremulous gasps and is preceded by a thin groan of weak, mirthless laughter. “You--- you wanted me to do this?”

“In a perfect world, you would have taken each other out, but… it isn’t a perfect world, is it, Matthew?”

Matt’s world narrows to Fisk’s monolithic form. Beneath the fabric of the three-piece suit which rustles over his bulky chest, beneath the layer of fat and prodigious muscle, his confident heartbeat throbs onward like a booming metronome, hammering out a triumphant litany of _Matthew Matthew Matthew._ The strength goes out of Matt’s legs and he shakily falls from his crouch to his knees. Everything is swirling unsteadily around him but for the fixed point that is Fisk, standing there like a steadfast column of doom, only his fists moving, his skin rasping softly at his sides as he clenches his hands.

“Not yet,” Fisk says, with an unspoken _anyway_ , as an aside directed mostly towards his right-hand man. “To be honest… it took longer than I expected. Nobu didn’t mind, he’d meditated for hours. I find it difficult to meditate… my, _mind_ , it won’t _quiet_ …” One of his meaty hands comes up to make a twisting gesture, his splayed fingers hovering beside his head to illustrate gears turning. “Character flaw, I suppose,” he mutters, before shuffling his feet into a slightly wider stance and raising his voice. “We all have them.” He points. “ _You_ , for instance. You’ve demonstrated an emotional weakness for children and women… I assumed that would extend to the elderly. So I baited the hook.” He pauses, probably flicking his eyes in a brief scan of Matt where he kneels on the grimy concrete floor, dolefully weighing, always weighing everything as though he had the right to hold the scales of life and death. “And here you are. Matthew Michael Murdock, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s… disappointing.”

A fresh surge of anger claws at Matt’s guts, forcing him to his feet. Panting, he presses at the slice in his abdomen to stifle the shriek of pain it radiates, the gushing slick of iron-rich blood slippery through his glove, and finds himself leaning heavily on his less injured left leg. Unbalanced. He sways his weight from side to side in an attempt to center himself, jolts of pain running up his bones and ratcheting up his awareness. When he speaks he can only manage to do so in shuddering exhalations. “You took her life… just to _get my attention?_ ”

Fisk’s head bows in a travesty of regret. “Nobu forced my hand in the matter. My options, they were limited. By necessity. I took no pleasure in her passing.”

His heartbeat signals that, impossibly, he _believes himself_. In an icy rage Matt decides to clearly relay to Fisk his precise and immediate intentions.

“I’m go--- I’m gonna kill you.”

The men behind Fisk lift their arms, aiming the metal-and-oil-scented shapes of well-cared handguns at him. The right-hand man is alert but unconcerned, merely taking a reasonable precaution against a self-declared threat to his employer. Fisk nonetheless waves them both down.

“In other circumstances,” he says, “I would tell you, to, ‘take your shot.’ But the… _reality_ , Matthew, is that we know… _I_ know… who you are. Where you live. Where you work. Where you worship.”

Matt shakes his head in denial though he hasn’t even the slimmest chance of salvaging the secret of his identity now that it’s out. Fisk becomes gentle, almost sympathetic, but remains implacable. “Who your acquaintances are. Who your friends are. Who your… loved ones. Are.”

“No,” Matt says, a futile murmur with nothing to support it. He staggers backwards a few steps, retreating towards the water-side wall like a reluctant animal which has yet to fully accept that it is cornered. In an act of stubborn defiance he bares his clenched teeth and repeats, “No, I’m _gonna kill you_.”

If Matt, as he likely will in his state, fails… if he dies at Fisk’s hand… then at least he would be out of the picture and there'd be no reason for Foggy, Karen, or anyone else to be harmed because of him. They’d all be free.

And if Matt kills Fisk, then, though an indelible stain will be on his soul, he will have removed a miasmic evil which has been spreading its tendrils throughout the city streets he holds dear. The head will have been cut from the snake and any hostages will be out of danger. No matter how deplorable the means, and whatever the fallout for himself, the result would be worth something.

Either way this must all end now.

For a second he thinks that he’s managed to goad Fisk into entering a physical confrontation. His massive body tenses, temperature and heart rate rising incrementally, but within one moment and the next the right-hand man strides smoothly forward and places an unobtrusive hand on Fisk’s elbow. “Sir,” he says quietly, apparently seeking permission to intervene.

To Matt’s despairing frustration, Fisk sighs deeply, his temperature and heart rate leveling out as his temper gives way to less volatile exasperation. With a nod he sweeps his arm in Matt’s direction. “Go on, Wesley.”

The right-hand man--- Wesley--- jerks his head down in brisk acknowledgement and moves closer to Matt. Matt can smell a trace of his cologne, its sharpness cutting through the oppressively thick, greasy odor of burning flesh and the tang of Matt’s blood. The billowing fire crackles like white noise in his left ear and he can feel individual droplets of salty sweat stinging as they slide into the gaping slashes of his wounds, can hear the scritching of the jagged ends of broken ribs, rubbing together with each labored breath. He doesn’t know how much longer his trembling legs will support him but his expectations are certainly not high.

“Mr. Murdock,” Wesley begins, unctuously businesslike. “As well as having graduated summa cum laude from Columbia and being a man of clear intelligence, you’ve consistently displayed a remarkable perseverance and more than competent combat skills during your nighttime activities. Your efforts, though misguided, have been vigorous and admirable, and surviving this confrontation with Nobu has proven to us that you would be an advantageous addition to our organization. Rather than wasting such talents, we’d prefer them to be redirected in order to align with our own interests.”

“Never.” The windows face the river. Even exhausted as he is Matt could probably crash through one with enough force to land in the dank, scummy water below. Be swept under by the sluggish current. Drown.

“I’m afraid you don’t fully appreciate the situation. Failure to comply to our demands directly jeopardizes the well-being of everyone important to you. If you were to make an attempt on the life of our employer, for instance, you would condemn an innocent. Should you commit suicide like a foolhardy martyr you would automatically render the existence of every last person you’ve ever cared about superfluous, and we would therefore proceed to take what measures are necessary.”

Matt’s breath catches as the meaning penetrates and the last grim hope he’s been nurturing is stifled. Of course they’ve thought everything out, put plans in place. There are no doubt snipers already posted, waiting for a call. He barely listens as Fisk thanks Wesley and walks forward, as Fisk says, “Well, Mr. Murdock? Will you see reason?”

 _I can’t see anything_ flashes hysterically through Matt’s mind, and he chokes on what might be laughter, bites down hard into the padding of his glove, tastes oily smoke and dirt, synthetics and blood and bile. He realizes that there are tears soaking into his now-pointless mask, patches of hot, prickling dampness which cling irritatingly to his skin, and he rips it off his head, casts it away. Cool, musty air hits the wretched bareness of his exposed upper face, and he doubles over, sinking to the floor. Wild, keening sobs rattle in his chest, scrape their way up his throat, and flood from his mouth, raw, and anguished, and intensely, helplessly furious.

There is only one choice.

 

~~~

 

The call comes to Claire’s phone in the middle of the night from an unknown number. She’s half asleep when she answers. Ten minutes later she’s wide awake, fully dressed, and concealing a can of pepper spray and a switchblade on her person as she steps into the backseat of a dark, clean, nondescript car with tinted windows and a stony-faced driver who’s wearing a suit and a gun.

“Claire Temple?” he asks, standing by the car door, like a gentleman, but not making any move towards holding it for her. So, like a dick.

“Chauffeur slash dumb muscle?” she snips back pointedly. She hates having her sleep disturbed and loves being threatened, blackmailed and essentially kidnapped, _again_ , even less. Though not getting beaten to a pulp this time during transport from point A to B is a definite, albeit slender, silver lining.

While the guy doesn’t open the door, he does stoop to slamming it behind her as hard as he can in some fit of childish pique. Oh, charming. _Very_ professional. If she’d wanted to deal with babies she would’ve become a pediatrician, damn it.

She fastens her seatbelt before they can pull onto the road because the universe obviously has it out for her and the last thing she needs is to be horrifically maimed in a car crash. Claire’s seen damage from vehicular accidents up-close and personal. Buckling up for safety is just basic risk management.

“Where we going?” she asks, watching his eyes in the mirror. “Or is that classified?”

He ignores her.

“Guess that’s a ‘yes,’ then,” she mutters, pulling her jacket more tightly around herself and crossing her arms. They’re probably taking her someplace nice and secluded to put a bullet in the back of her skull. Great.

Time to practice some deep breathing techniques and shove her mounting fear into a teeny tiny box to be set aside and dealt with sometime in the future she hopes to have. Stay cool now, freak out later. Probably not a good coping mechanism, but she’s always been preoccupied with health of the body over that of the mind, anyway.

If she cooperates with them she’ll be fine. She’s going to keep herself together. She can do this.

Matt and his reckless higher calling needs her.

 

~~~

 

Claire follows a different mook than the driver into the building, walking briskly and with her head held high enough to project an air of confidence, her expression carefully blank. A career spent, in part, soothing people scared witless as they wait on a possibly dire diagnosis has honed her poker face to something she feels she can control even in a situation like this. Whatever this situation is, exactly. The phone call provided her much incentive but not a lot in the way of details.

The guy leads her to an upstairs room at the end of a bland hallway and turns to station himself off to one side of the door, across from another apparent guard. The door is dark, thick wood, the grain standing out against it like the whorls of a fingerprint, and it’s heavily bolted. From the outside.

A burst of mingled dread and anger threatens to crack her façade of calm.

“Ah, Miss Temple,” says the same smooth, smug voice she’d heard over the phone. “Thank you for arriving on such short notice.”

She gives herself a moment before pivoting to address the suit-in-charge who’s appeared possibly out of thin air behind her, as punching him and shattering his impeccably polished horn-rimmed glasses would really not bode well for her. “Enough pleasantries, please. I was led to believe there was a patient in need of my treatment.” It’d be better to give the illusion of emotional distance between her and Matt so they can’t be used as effectively against each other, and she therefore keeps her tone cold, just short of callous.

A small, dead-eyed smirk conveys just how little he’s convinced. “Certainly.” He gestures without looking and one of the guards immediately sets to work on the numerous locks and latches. They’re all new, shiny steel. “Mr. Murdock was in a state of hysteria after accepting our offer and we were compelled to sedate him. Upon relocation he became disoriented, and proceeded to violently lash out at any of the medical professionals who attempted to administer care. It was most prudent to contact someone he already knew and trusted, to keep him from injuring himself…” his lip curls faintly as the guard finally turns the doorknob and shoves it ajar… “any further.”

“He was already flipping out so you _drugged him?_ ” she growls, sounding far too concerned for Matt’s wellbeing to keep up any charade of indifference. Matt was probably registering people as _threat_ and _non-threat_ at this point, unable to fully process what was going on around him. She grinds her teeth and fingers the little can of pepper spray in her pocket. If she broke his glasses with that punch first, she could be sure to aim a good amount of the stuff straight into his eyes. See how he liked being blinded by potent chemicals as a direct result of his actions towards other people.

“Go ahead,” he says urbanely, and she shoulders in front of him and walks in.

 

~~~

 

Matt looks to be in horrendous shape. Even worse than when she’d first met him after heaving him out of that dumpster with Santino. Someone has managed to cut him out of his shirt, baring multiple lacerations still caked with sluggishly oozing blood and grime, and medical equipment has been shoved away from his cot, the sheets on the floor. Matt edgily pushes himself up as she enters, his face contorting in a grimace and one of his hands flying to press against his side.

“Claire?” He twists his head in her direction, a sheen of sweat glittering on his ashen, bruise-mottled skin. He looks forlorn and fragile in a way she’s never seen before. _Defeated_. More than anything else, _that’s_ what scares her right down to her core. “Is that you?”

Claire swallows at the fact that he can’t even tell for sure that it’s her even when she’s this close to him. “Yeah, it’s me, Matt. I’m right here.”

“No,” he whimpers, letting himself fall back onto the cot. “No.” He must have been hoping it wasn’t her. That they didn’t know about her.

She edges closer and leans over him, lowering her voice in an attempt to garner them some meager amount of privacy. “How do you feel?”

“Hurts. Everywhere. Mind’s fuzzy. Can’t block anything out. ’M really out of it, Claire. Really… tired.”

“I just need to patch you up again and then you can sleep. It’ll be fine.”

“Hah,” he laughs, dully, a bubble of blood bursting on his lips. “’S’a lie.”

“You can still focus on my heart? Matt?”

Matt sighs wearily, eyes drifting shut and expression slackening. In a cracked monotone he whispers, “No. ’S just truth. Fisk won, Claire. Found out who I am. Has all of you. He’s won.”

He might already be out, but Claire leans down, angling her back to the door, and whispers grimly to him, “It’s not over for you, Matt. It never is.” Because she needs him to still believe that. _He_ needs to.

She fixes him up with the suit-in-charge’s eyes burning holes into her back through the open door, then surreptitiously supplies Matt with a pair of foam earplugs, for all the good they’ll do him, and leaves him to drop into a fitful sleep as she’s interrogated in the next room over, about Matt’s history, his abilities, and about who knows what he was doing at night. She lies to the suit as much as she can, with a steady gaze and hands shoved in her pockets. Says they never talked enough for him to divulge his backstory to her but that he received some sort of tough training when he was young. Says he doesn’t have any extraordinary powers, just determination and skill. Skirts the issue of his eyesight altogether in the unlikely event that Matt’s been able to fool them into thinking he’s a sighted man using blindness as an asshole cover. She claims to be sure that no one besides herself knows about Matt’s vigilantism, that Matt’s told her no one else even suspects, and she avoids any mention of Santino completely.

All of her answers are marked down scrupulously with no outward sign as to whether or not they are believed to be plausible, and when she’s perfunctorily thanked and offered a ride back to her apartment Claire refuses. She’s grudgingly granted a remarkably uncomfortable metal folding chair and proceeds to stay planted in it at Matt’s bedside until long after dawn, staring at the boringly pale beige wall and letting her frantic thoughts spin in a circle ’til they’ve finally tired themselves out and left her to sit in an empty, uneasy peace.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Matt swims into consciousness like a drowning man who hasn’t quite yet fully resolved to live, sluggish with dread and unsure whether to head up to air or strike further downwards into the depths. Everything’s sore, and when he opens his eyes out of reflex the latent headache spikes, his brain pulsing against the confines of his skull as though swollen, but he’s had worse head injuries and knows the damage doesn’t match the extent of the pain. He'd be able to... to tell. Probably. It’s difficult to place himself... everything is muffled, something, earplugs, blocking his ears, and he fumbles them out only to undergo a wave of ambient city noise crashing straight into his abused brain, the deluge of overstimulation only confusing his radar further, but he nonetheless immediately, laboriously begins to struggle up onto his elbows, gasping as his wounds stretch and protest with shivery flares of hurt which pluck distractingly at his already scattered attention. He’ll figure out where he is, think about what to do, once he’s on his feet.

“ _Jesus_ , Matt,” exclaims Claire, close by, off to his left. He’s startled her; the unsteady chair legs bearing her weight squeak against the floor, screws on the crossbars scraping and hollow metal bars flexing complainingly and then ringing with minute echoes as she jerks out of her doze and then launches to her feet in a waft of antiseptic, lavender shampoo, several-day-old laundry and fading deodorant, all masking the natural smells of breath and body odor, digestion and perspiration, but not enough to overwhelm traces of the elusive, distinctive tang he associates with stress, with fear. Her feet hit the ground muffled only by socks, old polyester-wool blends as he can tell by the quality of sound as the warp and weft of the worn material brushes and is then crushed against bare concrete floor, ankle-highs with a hole in the right one’s heel, and her joints pop with the suddenness of her movement, creaking and uncoordinated after hours of slumped inaction.

Her hand feels hot as a brand against his bare chest between the matching cuts which Nobu’s blades have slashed horizontally into his pectorals, the neat sutures that Claire’s stitched over them tugging at the lips of the wounds as the muscle beneath shifts and the scabbing breaks open, just enough to release an iron-rich scent-burst of fresh blood to complement the guilt swelling under his breastbone as the implications of recent events begin to float once again to the forefront of his mind.

She pushes him back, muttering, “Jesus, Mary, and freaking _Joseph_ , just _stay down_ for once,” and he lets his arms give out beneath him, ignominiously depositing himself back in a sprawl onto the intolerable prickliness of starched linen sheets, trembling with exhaustion just from the feeble attempt to get himself up.

“Drugs still in your system?”

Claire's voice resounds in the room, battering him from so close by, making everything swirl. It feels like the bed's in a tailspin, and he clenches his fists in the sheets as he nods once, sharply, suppressing his nausea and hearing the rustling scritch of his hair rubbing against the pillow, thin as an insect's call but even louder than her voice, louder than the rush of the air conditioning and hum of electricity and the heartbeats and the cadences of countless conversations and the flushing of toilets and scrape of brooms and shoes on the sidewalk and the cars stuck in the traffic of the morning commute and the sirens wailing over it all, screaming---

“ _Matt_ ,” Claire says. She's lowered her voice almost to a whisper and her hand is on his chest again, grounding him. “Matt, stay with me. Block it all out. Deep breaths.” 

There are tears trying to flow back into his dry, gummy-lashed eyes, but his tear ducts only itch, tender. There is no point in throwing another fit. He smooths his expression and simply nods again, his head twitching shallowly downward, and breathes as Claire has instructed, pulling his concentration inwards and matching her example until he hears their thoracic diaphragms contracting to draw air into their lungs, then the relaxed flexing of the sheets of skeletal muscle as they expand, pushing air out, fall into synchronicity. 

“Good,” she says. “Good, you'll be fine. You're fine.” 

He chuckles a bit, grimly... he still feels a little loose, a lot maudlin, the drugs clearly still lingering after all. “That team of medics who dosed me up last night are coming down the hallway with a suitcase full of fresh supplies and another couple of bodyguards rattling with guns and tasers. I'm going to be very not fine in a few very short minutes, Claire.” 

She turns her head fast enough for her hair to burst into reedy song as it whips up in an arc to settle on the other side of her shoulder, and, as one of the guards begins to unlock the door, the keys snicking into locks and catching on the tumblers at a pitch audible enough for Claire, too, to hear, she stands and braces herself between them and Matt's cot, her socked feet planted firm and flat on the floor. 

“Claire,” he murmurs urgently as the door swings open and they begin to enter, filing briskly in like a trained troop deployment. “Let it go, just step aside. Claire.” 

She ignores him.

“Miss,” says the middle-aged, slightly overweight man carrying the suitcase, the handle creaking in his dry hand, his doctor's coat brushing against the leather, and against the fabric of his slacks. He's eaten a recent breakfast of diner eggs, turkey bacon, and toast, washed down by plain Earl Grey tea rather than coffee, his shoes new, the fine leather reeking of polish and rubber and rubbing against his feet, raising a blister. There's a stethoscope looped around his neck, his hair's thinning at the top of his head, and the hard plastic nose pads of a pair of large-framed glasses tick delicately against the pad arms as they slide down a thin, straight-bridged nose. He seems the very notion of a friendly family doctor, soft-spoken, and a little old-fashioned in the negative, sexist way, secure enough in his white male “charm” to go through life unquestioned. Claire crosses her arms, thick cloth sliding against cloth and muscles tensing, as he walks towards Matt, but otherwise she does not move. She's surely glaring. The doctor stops, settling his weight on his heels, tilting his head. Matt can hear him biting his tongue, undulating it against the worn edges of his incisors, the thoughtful breath inward through his nose as he pushes his lips out into a slight moue. 

“ _Claire_ ,” Matt hisses. 

“He doesn't need any further  _help_ from you,” she says unevenly to the doctor, low and so acidly fierce the air is soured. 

The doctor's lips squelch against his teeth as he pulls them back in and stretches them down into a frown. “Ah,” he says, understandingly, falsely regretful. “I don't want to upset you, miss, but we have a job to do. If you would.” He flicks his hand up and sideways, gesturing her dismissal. 

“Please, Claire,” Matt whispers. The guards are just a little fidgety, extremely attentive and fully prepared to intervene, the rubbery soles of their shoes squeaking as they shift to better angle themselves towards Matt where he lies and Claire where she stands defiantly before him. One is edging the side of the wall, coming parallel to her. None of them rest on their heels. 

“Just a checkup,” the doctor reassures, with gently jovial condescension. Claire's molars grind as she clenches her jaw. 

“Get out,” she growls. 

The man at the wall makes a grab for Claire's arm and it's only now that Matt notices the object in her hand as she clenches it, hidden by her sleeve, her heartbeat spiking as she's moving her finger to the top of the small metal cylinder, some sort of can with a plastic nozzle--- 

\---he didn't  _focus_ , how did he not  _realize_ and  _warn_ her, she has pepper spray and she's going to threaten them with it, point it in their faces and they're going to overreact and  _shoot her_ , they're going to  _kill her_ \--- 

\---and Matt launches himself at the man reaching for Claire and drives him against the wall, thoughtless and graceless but unexpected enough for him to get the advantage, his nerves afire with panic and pain and he's punching the man over and over---

\---and Claire says his name, very, very calmly, and he catches himself, fist raised, comes back to himself.

The other guard in the room is behind her, holding a gun up against her chin. “Matt,” she repeats, the gun barrel pressing further into her skin as she talks and the air of her words distorted by the careful stillness of her parted lips, “remember that thing I said about deep breaths?” 

He's gasping, his cracked ribs shuddering as they splay out, in, out, and as his crouch deepens, the curve of his spine too tight to straighten, only tightening further, as though he could curl out of sight. Most of the blood he smells is his own, his stitches already popped. Stupid, stupid, rash and unobservant, too slow and too weak. He pushes himself off the man, who scrambles away, clutching at his broken nose and the swelling of his eye before standing and unholstering his own gun to aim it at Matt, the safety safely on. Professional. Matt sits shakily against the wall, his hunched back bumping the drywall, head bowed, cowed, and raises his hands, palms out, no threat. His knuckles pulse with fresh bruising and he can taste the rage boiling in the back of his throat, the devil scrabbling for release and twisting his lip into a sneer which he swiftly suppresses. 

“Sorry,” he says, inanely, after a long pause, after everyone's had a moment to collect themselves. 

The man with the gun to Claire draws back, jerks his head minutely from side to side, and the man whose face Matt has rearranged twists towards him before centering himself again, one of those nonverbal exchanges too physically subtle for Matt to explicitly perceive but which he's familiar enough with to diagnose as some sort of shared glance of disbelief, like the ones Karen and Foggy have when Matt offers them yet another unimaginative excuse for his latest vigilante-related injuries, an awkward silence replete with quizzical, semi-offended speculations as to his seriousness. 

“Huh,” the doctor says. He's frightened now, a faint coat of bitter sweat smudged over his brow, his fingers squeaking damply around the suitcase handle, but besides such unavoidable tells he's hiding it very well. Burying it under efficiency. “Well. That was very exciting, but I think you're due for a sedative, young man.” 

Matt snorts, then brings himself back under control. He's a wreck. He's better than this. What the hell would Stick have to say of him?

“I'm sorry,” he says again. “I wasn't thinking straight, but I'll cooperate now. Whatever you need me to do,” he shrugs fatalistically, “I'll do it.” He considers for a moment before adding, rather too wryly, “I'm all yours.” 

One guard stays on him and Claire each as the doctor and his people converge on Matt, lifting him under the arms to relocate him back to his cot, the narrow mattress pitching under his weight. The latches of the suitcase are flicked open at the same time, the smell of sealed, expensively treated leather strengthening briefly as the lid is swung open along with a touch of dust and alcohol. He keeps himself passive, placid as acrid antiseptics and localized anesthetics are swabbed cold and burning over his skin, as his wounds are restitched, throughout the pricks and prods of hollow hair-thin needles and as the disc of the stethoscope presses like ice against his chest to allow dull ears to eavesdrop on the organic mechanics workings away within him, to triangulate the misalignments, the sour notes. They give him the sedative first, strong enough to make him feel like he's floating, for the entire world with all its screeching agonies to pour unhindered and unfiltered into his ears, and with that clamorous maelstrom spiraling all about him he almost doesn't care when they put in the subcutaneous tracker. Almost. 

He winces only when that microchip goes in, his fuzzy instincts telling him that there's something terrible about the smooth little pellet of electronics being implanted into his flesh, sewn into the meat between his shoulders as it would be on an animal, where it's harder to reach, harder for him to dig out with his blunt, bloodied claws, but Claire's teeth are grinding again, enough anger radiating from her to rival the restless dark which roils within him at his worst, and he does not move because there is a gun on Claire and there must be guns on Foggy and Karen and everyone else and this is the only way to keep those guns from firing. He's an idiot, yes, but he's not that much of one. Even drugged he's not about to risk that. Risk  _them_ . 

The subtle heat of a penlight hovers over his face, the nurse pulling his eyelids apart with nitrile-sheathed thumb and forefinger, a long tendril which has escaped from her chignon drifting down to tickle his cheek, sawing up and down on his stubble with her movements, as she flicks the beam from side to side and takes a sharp breath of surprise, repeating the process to be sure. Claire's heart speeds into a sprint; she knows that short-lived secret is already over. The nameless nurse waves for the doctor's attention and he takes the light from her and does it as well, saying “Huh,” rolling his tongue against his teeth as he pulls away to make a note on a clipboard in quick, short strokes with an expensive pen, sleek as a spaceship and heavy in the man's hand, the tart smell of ink rolling out smoothly to bleed into the pressed topmost layer of bleached wood-pulp printer paper, familiar as the office. Homey.

The doctor tells him “All done,” and pats Matt's arm when everything's over, and as he removes his disposable exam gloves with one snap of powder-free polymer followed by another and his pair of nurses collect the medical detritus and repack the suitcase the second guard finally removes the gun from Claire's jaw, peeling the muzzle from the tender, humid depression it has stamped into her skin, and takes a step back to give her some space. 

She swallows thickly and locks her legs to keep them from trembling, but she curls her toes against the floor, spasmodic, nails scraping through the cloth, and stiffly shoves her fists into the pockets of her hoodie, the pepper spray secreted away in the right. Matt concentrates on her, making her the clearest thing in the room, an anchor. 

When Matt stands he senses the nurses flinching, and the guard with the tissues crammed up his nostrils to plug the bleeding starts warily, suspicious, but Matt can barely stay on his feet, let alone leap at him in a repeat performance of foolishness. He puts his arms out for balance, finds the wall and brushes against it with his fingertips, and hobbles, slowly, swaying, over to Claire. She meets him before he can take more than a couple steps, reaching a hand out for his shoulder to steady him but recoiling when he twitches away to avoid her touch, unprepared. 

“You're tired. Go home,” he says, his tongue unwieldy in his mouth, language curt only because the words he should say and the energy to say them have fleetly flown far beyond his uncoordinated grasp. He wants to go to sleep again. Sleep and never wake up. He blames the drugs only partially. 

“You sure?” she whispers. She's scared. Matt hopes it's on her own behalf for once. 

He digs down into the recesses of his most persuasive, lawyerly reasoning and comes up with, “If you're not here I won't try and protect you.” 

She expels a soft huff of air through her lips, momentarily making visible to him the shape of her crooked, sardonic smile, the curl at the corner of her mouth. He can taste the salty moisture she's blinking back from her eyes. “Heaven forbid you try and play hero. You just get yourself in trouble.” 

Matt nods. “Yeah,” he says, in solemn, wholehearted agreement. 

Claire hesitates, empty hands out of her pockets and arms half-risen from her sides, perhaps pricked by her own sense of guilt, before enfolding him in a hug. Her hoodie is soft and warm against his bare torso, her hold firm but eminently gentle, mindful of his injuries, her hand soothing as it presses against the nape of his neck and cards through his unkempt hair, ruffling it and then smoothing it over his scalp. He drops his face against her shoulder and lets her heartbeat drown out the sounds of the city for as long as they remain clasped together. 

And then she goes. 

 

~~~

 

“Foggy?”

Karen has appeared in the office, the quick, light taps of her shoeheels muted against the cheap carpet as she rushes towards him. He didn't hear her unlocking the door. “I didn't hear you unlock the door,” he says aloud, because his brain refuses to function at anything other than base level right now, the obvious thing being the only thing to say, because there's nothing else to... because he can't... 

He unsticks his forehead from his, well,  _Karen's_ desk, and squints up at her through his hair, his vision bleary, even the dim light through the windows making his head hurt worse. She's leaning right over him so he has to roll his eyes upward to see her and his eyeballs twinge painfully in his sockets, but the alternative is tilting his head, or raising it, or something else horrendously energetic, and that's far too much motion for him and his presently very delicate constitution to handle. So he'll just kinda peer balefully upwards like a creature hunkering under a rock which has been rudely disturbed. By, like, a really conscientious person who was afraid that the rock was crushing him. 

“There's... I can't,” he says, his expression crumpling back into something pitifully bereft, he and resists the urge to duck his head, valiantly maintaining eye contact through the growing blur of his tears. He doesn't quite know what he means to convey. 

Karen looks awful, or at least as awful as a person as perfect as Karen is can look. Almost as bad as Foggy feels. She's tried for a semblance of normality... the shining blond fall of her hair is washed and brushed, she's done her makeup and is wearing one of her usual slim, retro skirts and pretty, well-fitted blouses, the cuffs clean and pressed around her wrists as she reaches towards him as though to take his temperature... but her clothes are all unusually subdued, unassuming colors, and her cosmetics have been applied with a shaky enough hand for her haggard countenance to show through, the eyeshadow smudged and uneven around puffy, reddened eyes. There's a trembling to her jaw, a fragility in the tight, cautious set of her shoulders, like the nervous poise of a wild doe. 

“Have you been here all night, Foggy?” she asks, her voice pitched unnaturally high and soft, and she presses her fingers to her lips when she's done speaking as thought to hold in the rest of her worried questions even as she tentatively places her other hand over his brow. 

Her skin is cool on his, dry where he's gross and sweaty, and he can't help but let her take some of the weight off of his neck, blinking slowly as he tries to muster his wits, his reassurances. That's what he's best at, so it shouldn't be so hard. Why is it all this hard? “No, I... after Josie's I went looking... I looked for Matt.” He clears his throat, too loudly, sniffles to keep his nose from dripping. “He, uh... he wasn't home.” 

“Oh,” she says, and he can see her own compassion breaking her a little, another stress crack lengthening within her, as she mercifully does not ask why he came here of all places, why she found him passed out in her ugly, uncomfortable little desk chair with assorted bottles of alcohol sitting empty around him, the smell of vomit rising from the wastepaper basket off to one side and the morning sun casting stripes on his back through the crooked blinds, making the shadows stretch out towards the office door like they're yearning for escape. 

Karen is the strongest, bravest, most caring person he knows, but she is also the most vulnerable. 

“I'm fine, really,” he says. He smiles, putting a spark into his eyes, making sure it reaches them so that it seems genuine--- he'd never be able to fool Matt, but Matt and his preternatural ability to gauge Foggy's mood aren't here now, are they, that, that retreat-into-my-kingdom-of-isolation  _bastard_ \--- and hopes in vain that she'll smile back. 

She doesn't. “Foggy. It's been a day.” She looks painfully torn between earnestness and the composure which she could attain by shutting herself, her emotions, away, but in the end her need to offer truth, so cruel no matter how tenderly delivered, wins out. “You're allowed to grieve when someone's been taken from you.” 

He goes to speak but has to swallow before he can trust his voice, and even then it comes out reedy, almost a whisper. “She was taken from you, too. From the whole world. A lovely old lady who stood up for what she believed in and was nothing but kind, and, and sweet, and funny, and who cooked us food like we were her own kids or something... she didn't deserve to die, Karen. She  _didn't. Deserve._ To _die_ .” 

Karen straightens, her jaw clenching. A glint of steel through silk. “You're right, Foggy. You're absolutely right.” 

He shakes his head helplessly, dislodging her hand from his forehead and drawing himself upward. “Then... why? Why, Karen? Is there even a  _reason?_ ” That's what hurts the most: the unexpectedness, the pointlessness. The fact that there are no good answers and that even if there were, they wouldn't change anything that really mattered. 

“ _Fisk,_ ” she snarls, grabbing both his hands in hers, so tightly he feels the bones rub up against each other, and she feels like electricity, bright and invigorating and ruthless. 

Foggy realizes that his tears have started trickling down his cheeks, but he's nodding, turning his hands so he can return her hold. “Yeah. We're bringing him down.” 

“ _Damn right we are_ ,” says Karen, and she's crying again too, her mascara running around her wide, glacial blue eyes, her pale face hard as granite. “ _Damn right_ .” 

 

 

 

 


End file.
